Rigging tutorial?

[dmcgrath]

You anwer will be forthcoming. I am still working on rigging, and I think writing a tut on the subject will help me as much as others out there. But it will probably be about a month away, what with the holidays and me needing to finish my homework.

I'll post it here though, so don't worry.
:thumbsup:

[dwkim]

Have you looked at the Gnomon video tapes? They are about some of the best non-book, watch n learn methods out there.

An end all character tutorial would be difficult since rigs are custom made for different characters, but by using some of the tutorials on the web, video education (Gnomon and/or Alias), and books (manuals and other texts), you should be able to get into the mental paradigm of understanding rigging as an art and science.

Best way to learn is to make mistakes and repair the mistakes or not repeat the mistakes the next time around. Good luck.

[Myau337]

Glad to hear dmc, I'm definitely looking forward to it. If I can gain competency before then I'd like to post a tutorial myself (doubt that will happen sooner though. ;) )

I do understand anticipating an end-all rigging tutorial is unrealistic; specifically I'd just like to see a fairly complete general one on rigging a semi-realistic bipedal human being. I realize that's a tall order too.

I agree that the Gnomon tutorials are excellent; my university has a nice but incomplete collection of them and I've been able to glean some great knowledge (I saw one demonstrating a tongue control which was fantastic!) Some of the material is dated, that is to say that some of the controls Alex uses aren't abstracted enough for my taste and the animator is using IK handles directly, etc. I'd prefer to see a more modern setup explained with animation controllers made of NURBs curves or poly-boxes-- but I understand that's mainly just an issue of using set-driven keys and the connection editor.

Major stumbling blocks for me have been setting up MEL expressions for controlling things like toe-roll and secondary animation. In rigs I see there are multiple constraints all over the place I'd like to have a clearer idea of what's going on with all that. I'm also curious about using a character node and TRAX like Jason S. of WETA does. I'm not sure if this is even necessary at this point in my understanding, but anything to make the rig more robust. Adding an extra bone in the forearm (or other areas, like the upper-leg near the hip??) for proper twist also seems to be a topic of debate.

Finally, getting it all to work together in a single-rig is rough for the newbie-TD. I've definitely got a long ways to go and I appreciate the advice from you guys who know what's up.

[Myau337]

Just found an interesting thread in the Character Rigging forum (of all places, whodda thunk?) It's not terribly helpful for the beginner but does inform about a set of scripts called The Joint Factory (available at www.highend3d.com and the 4.5 version is forthcoming) which might be dissected for learning. Also, there's talk about automated rig setup through parsing locators which is too heavy for me at this point but could *really* come in handy on down the line. And, that thread promises some great things coming up if said posters find the time...

Thought I'd pass it on if anyone hasn't seen it.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26998

[dmcgrath]

Okay, if you are still looking at this thread, I have done 6 pages of HTML on the rigging setup. I think it's going to be about 20 pages long though. I'll try and post the early stuff in a couple of days and start getting input from people out there.
Everything I will show you comes from a class I took @ the AAC in S.F. I just hope I won't be stepping on any toes at my school.

[iC4]

can't wait to see it :)

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